


Nanny Ashtoreth and the Fall of Harriet Dowling

by ModernWizard



Series: The Demon's Daughter [9]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Also a good night's sleep, And she desperately needs child care, And she doesn't even really appear in the story, Gen, Harriet Dowling POV, Harriet hasn't slept in about four months, Heck the witch, Heck the witch not yet known as the witch formerly known as Warlock, If she had a soul, It's mainly Harriet and Nanny, Lapsed Catholic, NEW BABY HELL, Other, Religious terminology, Roman Catholicism, Sarcastic blasphemy, She'd sell her soul for one, She's living in a Mary Poppins novel, She's only three months old here, Sin on more Harriet! Sin on more!, Trans Warlock, Trans Warlock Dowling, Unitarian Universalism, Which she doesn't, heck, how good it is to be bad, self-conscious Christian allusions, the Fall of Harriet Dowling, the sin of disobedience, yelling at god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-18 10:27:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20637665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernWizard/pseuds/ModernWizard
Summary: [In which Heck is 3 months old. Awwwwww, baby Hecklet!] Harriet Dowling, 28 and 3 months out from the birth of her kid, needs a miracle. Her husband dumped this whole child care thing on her, so, on top of dealing with the neverending demands of a new baby, she's also trying to hire a live-in child care provider. The four previous prospects have all quit, which is why sporadic Unitarian and lapsed Catholic Harriet is calling on people she doesn't believe in for some help. Heaven does not seem to be forthcoming with the aid. This weird woman all in black, who just sped up to Harriet's door in a hearse-like car, might be an option, though... In other words, the fall of Harriet Dowling was inevitable. Read on to find out why.





	1. Supplication

Harriet Dowling, twenty-eight, lay on her living room couch in her Tadfield cottage at 11:00 AM on a Tuesday. Or at least it was probably somewhere around that time. And Tuesday seemed as good a guess as any. She’d had her first kid just three months ago, after which she had promptly entered a time warp. The unrelenting newness of everything, combined with her kid’s unrelenting demands for food and sleep and diaper changes, had tipped her over into an altered state of consciousness. 

Light, giddy, and punchy, she had little idea of the time or date. She flopped on the couch like sagginess personified, dragged down even further at intervals when her breasts filled up. When would she ever have a moment to herself again? Would she ever know the sweet, sweet release of sleep? She sincerely doubted it.

New moms, she reflected, would be great targets for deals with the Devil. Her head started to pound, so she threw her arm over her face to protect herself from the light. —Assuming, of course, that you believed in the Devil, which Harriet didn’t. But, if the Devil existed and sent minions around to tempt human souls into sin, he could make a killing on new moms. If she had a soul, she totally would sell it for a single decent night’s sleep — or some reliable child care — because this new baby stuff was  _ Hell. _

Harriet liked to say that she lapsed so hard out of Catholicism that she became a Unitarian. The trouble had started when she’d hit seven, the so-called  _ age of reason. _ She had tried to apply that reason to her First Communion to determine why Eucharistic cannibalism was okay, but other kinds weren’t, but the clergy at her church weren’t too keen on that _ . _ It had escalated over the years with secret excursions to a friend’s UU harvest celebration. It culminated during confirmation classes with a meticulously researched polemic demonstrating that the religion in which she was born was a cult. After that, her parents conferred with the priest and decided that she wouldn’t have to go to church until she was  _ ready for confirmation. _ That was almost eighteen years ago, and she’d been an intermittent Unitarian ever since.

Despite her disillusionment with the faith of her youth, Harriet still prayed to God on occasion. Well, it was less praying and more yelling. And it was less to God than it was to Mary. If there was a God (which Harriet was pretty sure there wasn’t), He, being male and not anyone’s mother, had no clue what she was going through. On the other hand, if anyone up there did understand her, it would surely be God’s Mom, right?

“Holy Mary Mother of God, why is finding child care so goddamn hard?” Harriet demanded of the ceiling. “Is it too much to ask for someone who stays longer than four weeks? Who doesn’t say that he was hoping for an older kid? Who gives more than two days’ notice? Who thinks my kid’s, you know, a kid and not some ungodly freak?” Harriet’s kid, Warlock Damien Asmodeus, was about three months old, and Harriet had regretted the name the moment the birth certificate was officialized. You couldn’t say  _ Warlock _ affectionately.  _ The kid, _ on the other hand, had a casual, intimate ring to it. So her kid was sometimes  _ her kid, _ sometimes  _ the kid.  _

“At this rate, I’m gonna need a miracle if I want to find anyone before the seventeenth.” That date was when she and Thad went off to Paris for six weeks on a post-baby getaway during which Harriet planned to spend most of the time sleeping. Anyway, she had less than two weeks to find live-in, preferably long-term, child care.

“Hello?” Harriet called to the ceiling, trying to massage the ache from her eye sockets. “That’s your cue. I’m gonna need a  _ miracle. _ So throw me down a governess already.” She liked that word; it reminded her of all the books she’d read growing up. Governesses were magic. They either bore enchantment into mundane life like Mary Poppins or got swept up in their own fairy-tale weirdness like Jane Eyre. Thinking about Mary Poppins, Harriet remembered that she’d tumbled out of the sky and pretty much taken over the Banks family. “On second thought, scratch that. There’s too much Mary Poppins going on here already.”

Harriet was currently enmeshed in a disaster much like the one at the beginning of P.L. Travers’ first Mary Poppins book, in which no child care provider stays very long. Harriet had interviewed thirty-seven people for child care for her kid. Thirty-four of them were so mediocre that she couldn’t hire them; they’d bore her kid to death. 

Four prospects had taken the job and then left shortly thereafter. One person said he couldn’t deal with a baby who hadn’t yet developed a personality. Another person said exactly the opposite; she believed that Harriet’s kid, who admittedly did shriek very loudly, was possessed by the Devil. A third person had left for their dream job after a week. A fourth person suddenly announced after a month that she wasn’t  _ feeling the Dowling vibe. _ Harriet, to whom Thad had abandoned this task because it was  _ a mom thing, _ was vibrating all right, but with frustration and the uncontrollable twitch of too many sleepless nights.

“Hello?” Harriet said again to Mary. “Are you listening?” No answer. “Are you busy?” No answer. “Should I call back later?” No answer. “Ugh, fine. Be that way. You’re no help. Not that you ever were. I’d have better luck with Satanic nuns or demons or some shit.” Her sigh turned into a yawn.


	2. Salvation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An ominous woman approaches. YIKES. Harriet exchanges about ten words with her and shuts the door in her face.

Harriet had given birth to her kid in the convent hospital of the Chattering Order of Imprecated Beryl, Tadfield’s friendly neighborhood Satanic nuns. She liked them and promptly concluded that they were no more Satanic than she was Catholic: i.e., in name only. In fact, she considered them pretty damn heroic. They remained absolutely perky, talkative, and therefore blessedly distracting when she was struggling with the worst part of labor.  _ (Yes, Mrs. Dowling, that’s it — do it for Satan! _ gave her the final burst of energy, amusement, and lapsed Catholic spite she needed to shove her kid into the world.) Then, when the whole place went up in flames a few hours later, they evacuated Harriet, her kid, the other two moms and their kids, and everyone else with efficient (and chattery) aplomb. Satanic nuns were good people. Unfortunately, the convent members had scattered since the fire, and she wasn’t sure how to reach them.

“Goddamn it to  _ Hell!” _ Harriet yelled. Then a moment later: “Shit.” She and Thad had agreed — no swearing around her kid. While her kid was asleep in the bedroom and probably didn’t care, Harriet, who liked swearing a lot, felt that she should practice. “Gosh darn it to  _ heck! _ Poop!” No, it just didn’t have the same ring.

“Heck. Heck!  _ Heck!  _ Heckity poop!” Okay, that was better. Wait...wasn’t that a goddess’ name? Hecate? Awwwww  _ yeah, _ she could at least take someone’s name in vain. “Hecate heckin’ mother-lovin’  _ poop!” _ Harriet cried. “No thanks to you, Mary, and your stinkin’ lack of — “

A squeal sounded, followed by a jouncing rumble. Was Thad back from the golf course already, trying to impress his friends with his car’s sound effects? No, it didn’t sound like his sports car.

Who was it then? Answering that question would require getting up. “Blurgh,” Harriet stated. She was bloated from pregnancy anyway, and every night of interrupted sleep seemed to add at least ten pounds. Soon, she expected, she’d be so freighted with tiredness that she’d just fall to the center of the earth. The amount of effort needed to lever her flaccid carcass into an upright position seemed impossible. But she was curious, so she did. She checked out the bay window that opened onto the long front drive.

No, that was definitely a hearse, going faster than any hearse she’d ever seen. No. Wait. It wasn’t a hearse. It was just one of those massive, bombproof early cars, all black, with a long, long hood and a long, long cab. It didn’t have much chrome, so it was probably earlier than the 1950s. 

The car sped up toward the house. Then it stopped with a violent abruptness, halting as if by magic. The wrong door opened — no, Harriet, you dummy, this is England; that’s the side the driver’s on over here — and a woman stepped out. She had a carpet bag in one hand and an alarmingly large umbrella in the other, despite the fact that there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

She was long and pale and sharp, covered all in black like she’d just been mourning, and she had small circular sunglasses shielding her eyes. She was tall enough to close the distance between car and door in very few strides. Her skirt restrained her, though, compelling her to move in switching sideways curves that nevertheless aimed her inevitably at Harriet’s house. 

Her outfit suggested the very late 1940s or early ‘50s. The structured blazer, with a high-necked blouse beneath, broadened and sharpened her shoulders. Given the carriage of her spine and the sudden narrowness of her belted waist, she was definitely wearing a girdle — no, a corset — beneath everything. Her skirt wasn’t quite historically accurate; though over the knee, it followed the shape of her legs too closely to truly be from that time. But she had the gloves and even the hat: a black velvet skimmer or possibly a derby; Harriet couldn’t see the shape too well. It was set rather far back on her head. That wasn’t true to period, but it did show off her hair, parted at the left and rippling up and over her forehead in dyed red waves. It was a calculated reinterpretation of history, and Harriet was impressed.

Because she was safely hidden behind the reflection of the sun off the window glass, Harriet eyed the woman’s outfit more critically. She’d chosen every element for a reason. Her overwhelming amount of black absorbed light as well as attention, automatically making her the center of any scene. Her silhouette spoke of sharpness and control freakery. With that corset and that pace, she bore herself like a soldier. 

The sheer anachronism of her outfit gave her a sense of uncanniness, like she was a time traveling witch who had just stalked out of the past. Or maybe she was one of Mary Poppins’ many weird relations, possibly by way of the Addams family. In conclusion, you didn’t dress like that unless you wanted people to do a double take and go,  _ Yikes! _

“Yikes,” muttered Harriet. She had a problem with authoritativeness. People in power didn’t scare her; she could handle them, like she handled her nice and increasingly exasperated childhood priest, without a problem. Well, she was fine with them so long as they were friendly and polite. Once they started being no-nonsense and commanding and intense and shit, though, she folded instantly. This woman was clearly of the latter category, and she’d probably flatten Harriet, whatever she was here for.

Harriet suddenly realized that she not only felt like total poop, but she must look it as well. She considered herself a bit of a fashionista, having studied the history of clothing in college. She carefully planned her self-presentations for what she called  _ rich and subtle elegance. _ And, unlike some of the pristine, vacuum-packed other diplomats’ and ranking military wives she knew, she’d abandoned all sartorial effort about six months ago. 

Ugh. Being thirteen years younger than Thad, Harriet didn’t get along well with the rest of Tadfield’s minuscule elite. They were the military personnel at Tadfield Air Base and their families, as well as a few other ambassadorial families. She’d been born into old New York money, so it wasn’t a cultural gap, but an age gap. All the other spouses, at least a decade older, believed some truly retrograde things. They counseled Harriet that she should support her spouse’s reputation by  _ at least making an effort,  _ but Harriet refused. Her efforts were going toward her kid, not herself. Besides, Thad, who hadn’t even been there for the delivery, wasn’t making an effort, so why should she?

As a result, Harriet dressed casually these days — even worse than casually. Her statement piece, such as it was, was a T-shirt that said  _ I just pushed an entire human being out of my body, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt. _ It was a gift from Linda, one of her equally sarcastic friends back home (as she still thought of New York). Thinking of how it would shock the other Tadfield spouses gave Harriet that little jolt of motivational vindictiveness she needed to start her day. Between that shirt, the sweatpants, and plastic clogs, Harriet assumed that she probably wouldn’t even pass muster on a college campus where everyone was pulling pre-exam all-nighters. She should really brush her hair or put on a sweater or, better yet, hide so this woman would never see her.

And yet, though a thorough mess, Harriet was curious. What  _ was _ this woman here for? With her carpet bag and her umbrella, she seemed less like a door-to-door sales person and more like a visitor, a guest. Perhaps, given the size of that bag, she intended to stay a while. But why? She certainly wasn’t family or anyone Harriet knew.

The woman advanced with the single-minded focus of someone who knew without a doubt that what she sought was here, with Harriet, in the cottage. She was so filled with confidence and an irrepressible desire for whatever it was that Harriet just had to know. What was she so hellbent on finding here?

The woman knocked on the door. Okay, said Harriet to herself. Smiley Happy Hostess Face —  _ go! _ She arranged her features into a mask of welcome, took a few deep breaths, opened the door, and practically sang out, “Good morning! Hello! Nice day, isn’t it?” She coughed. Ow. She hated when she freaked out and her voice went up into falsetto.

The woman just blinked a few times. Harriet didn’t actually see her eyes move because the shades were in the way, but she saw the motion of the woman’s brows. She wasn’t making a face at Harriet’s appearance, but rather at Harriet’s unexpected perkiness. “So I understand that you want me,” she said in a grave, tolling voice. 

“I  _ what?” _ Harriet had not been expecting that.

Now that the woman was up close, Harriet estimated that she was like over six feet tall, even though her pumps were pretty low. Though her hair was bottled burgundy, she hadn’t done anything with her eyebrows, which were low and straight and dark brown — i.e., her natural color. 

She also didn’t have much by way of makeup: just a little mascara, a little blush, and some dark red lipstick on her long, narrow mouth. She was maybe in her fifties and, of course, ageing. Nevertheless, she hid none of the shadows beneath her cheekbones, the wrinkles raying out from her eyes, or the grooved smile lines around her mouth. She had chosen her relatively plain presentation just as careful as she had chosen every one of her black garments, and Harriet respected her confidence in her own skin. At the same time, Harriet, whose hair was up in a lopsided ponytail and whose eye bags were practically bottomless pits, felt woefully schlubby and underdressed.

“I understand that you need me,” repeated the woman.

“I’m — um —  _ what?” _ Harriet repeated.

“I mean — Nancy. I mean — a nanny. I mean —  _ I’m _ Nanny.” Her whole  _ Soldier of Yikes _ act slipped for a moment. She pressed her hand to her chest. A red flush crept beyond the collar of her blouse, up her neck. “I’m so very dreadfully sorry,” she said, flashing a wide, self-conscious smile. “Do you mind if we start over?”

“Um, no,” said Harriet and, before she knew what she was doing, shut the door in the woman’s face.

“Hecate hecking mother-loving poop,” Harriet whispered, holding on the door knob to keep from shaking. “Yikes. Yikes!  _ Yikes!” _ Her heart attempted escape straight through her ribcage, smashing itself against the bars of her bones. She put her free hand over it and felt her skin jumping there. The way that the woman spoke — as if everything was already settled in her favor — was wonderful for authoritativeness, but horrible for Harriet. At least three quarters of her was in favor of following her heart and fleeing to a safe place, possibly under a bed, and not re-emerging until the woman and her hearse were halfway to Oxford.

“Calm the heck down, Harriet,” Harriet said to herself. “You weren’t the only one freaked out.” And it was true. The woman had clearly had some speech she meant to deliver —  _ I understand that you need a nanny, _ perhaps — but she had messed it up. Multiple times. And she knew she had messed it up because she was blushing in embarrassment. Which made her (no thanks to God or God’s Mom) human.

The woman wasn’t some impervious monolith of authoritativeness. (Harriet positively loathed people whose facades of competence never shook. They made her feel like  _ scunge _ — her older brothers’ word for that stuff left in the sink drain after you wash the dishes.) The woman was a fallible human being with the capacity for mistakes, chagrin, and — most promisingly of all — humor. She could be appealed to.

Just as Harriet wondered why she would possibly want to appeal to the woman, she knew the answer. If she was in fact a nanny/governess/child care provider/whatever and she did prove employable, then Harriet would have some back-up. With this woman beside her, she’d never let Thad dump anything like the whole child care choice on her again. She’d stand up for herself because the woman would be on her side.


	3. Temptation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> <strike>Nanny tempts</strike> <strike>Harriet tempts</strike> Harriet and Nanny cheerfully shoot past the point of no return.

Harriet put her face back into a slightly less rictus-like Happy Hostess Smile and opened the door again. “Well hello there, Ms. Dowling,” said the woman, holding out her hand, completely unperturbed by having the door closed on her recently. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Pleased that she had been hailed as _ Ms., _ Harriet inadvertently smiled for real. _ Mrs. Dowling _ made her think of outmoded salutations like _ Mr. and Mrs. Thaddeus J. Dowling XVI, _ in which she was addressed as part of Thad. Sure, she was married to him, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be talked to like she was his extra rib or some shit. “Hello. And you are — ?”

“Nancy — Nanny — Ashtoreth.” The woman beamed, which neutralized much of Harriet’s self-consciousness about her appearance (as well as Harriet’s suspicion that she might bludgeon someone with that umbrella).

“It’s wonderful to meet you, Ms. Ashtoreth,” said Harriet, meaning every word. “But...I’m sorry. Were we expecting you?”

“Yes, I’m the governess, and I see that I’ve come not a moment too soon! Despite what Mr. Dowling evidently thinks,” Nanny said, adorning _ Mr. Dowling _ with the vocal equivalent of an eye roll, “one person really isn’t equipped to deal with every single one of a newborn’s needs. It’s truly a daunting responsibility, isn’t it?” She shook her head, not at Harriet’s disarray, but at Harriet’s husband’s obviously erroneous belief that one parent could handle it all.

“Yeah, no, definitely.” Harriet rubbed her forehead, but the throb there seemed to have receded slightly. Perhaps it was because Nanny (Harriet couldn’t call her _ Ms. Ashtoreth _inside her head) had turned Harriet’s annoyance at her absent husband and her general exhaustion into a cozy commiseration. And she hadn’t condemned Harriet at all while doing so! 

“And that’s why I’m here,” proclaimed Nanny. “—To take on some of that work, which, you have to admit, can be rather tiresome at times.” 

Everyone Harriet had talked to in the past six months (with the exception of Linda, bearer of sarcastic T-shirts) rhapsodized about the unstinting joys of motherhood. They also regarded Harriet’s expressions of ambivalence as something akin to heresy, so she gladly welcomed this stranger with a slightly more nuanced perspective on the whole having kids thing. “Okay, I get that, but I haven’t hired a governess,” Harriet said.

“Francis’ partner?” Nanny said with a prompting lift of her eyebrows. “Oh, pffft! He forgot to mention that I was coming, didn’t he? That angel — !”

“Oh! Right!” Harriet recalled now. Hearing of her difficulty recruiting and keeping child care, Francis, the family gardener, had mentioned on several occasions that his partner was good with little ones. Harriet had assumed that Francis’ partner was another innocuous old gay guy with awful teeth. She had not expected an Amazon warrior queen who spoke like she was headmistress at some posh private boarding school. 

“He let me know that you would be at home at this time,” Nanny went on, “so I took the liberty of stopping by. But, if you didn’t know I was coming, is this an inopportune moment?”

“No, no, not at all. Actually, this is a _ very _ opportune moment. I was just asking Mary for some child care-related miracles.” Harriet flopped against the side of the door jamb.

“Mary.”

“You know, God’s Holy Mom,” said Harriet, her voice going down on the sarcasm. “And voila! Here you are! It’s a miracle.”

Nanny chuckled. “Miraculous, yes. Associated with God’s Holy Mom, most definitely not.”

“Sorry about that. I try not to associate with her either, but hey, we all have our flaws. Soooo…” Harriet folded her arms. “You’re miraculous, eh?”

“Obviously.” Nanny mirrored Harriet’s stance, and the sun flashed off her sunglasses. Harriet chose to read that as a twinkle in her eye.

“How so?”

“Invite me in and find out,” said Nanny. She was smiling as if she might laugh, but watching carefully as if it was a test.

There was always a point in every folk tale (one of Harriet’s favorite genres, even now) where the protagonist had one last chance to say no. (Don’t answer the door. Don’t let the stranger in. Don’t ask the questions. Don’t sign away your soul.) You could turn around and step back into your normal life. Everything would go on as it was. Harriet had read enough fairy tales to know this.

She’d also read enough fairy tales to be thoroughly sick of the protagonists who made the manifestly ill-advised choice to continue when all the signs clearly told them to turn around. (Don’t trust someone who drives a deathmobile. Don’t trust someone whose eyes you can’t see. And, for the love of all that is holy, definitely don’t trust someone who assures you that she’s miraculous, but also insists that Heavenly powers have nothing to do with it.) Harriet always screamed advice at the characters in books, but they never listened.

And now Harriet knew why they never listened. For one thing, she had always underestimated desperation as a motive. She was in such need of child care that she was yelling at people who didn’t exist, asking for favors that wouldn’t occur. The four previous failures had exhausted her. In such a state of physical and emotional prostration, she was willing to consider some truly weird shit. 

For another thing, you always had to factor in sheer human perversity: that combination of curiosity, defiance, and spite that powered quite a lot of Harriet’s actions when she was a kid. _ Don’t spit taffy over the edge of the Pilgrim Monument; you’re twelve years old, and you should know better. I don’t care what your brother did to deserve it — you do _ not _ fill his sock drawer with live bait! _ And, of course, the perennial favorite — _ For God’s sake, Hatty, don’t be difficult. _ Her parents had never figured out that _ no _ basically translated into Harriet’s head as _ I dare you. _

Anyway, if you know that you shouldn’t stuff the metaphorical live bait in the metaphorical fraternal footwear, then that very knowledge is really equivalent to a _ no. _ That negative, of course, becomes a challenge. And because you want to prove what you can do and because you want to prove the naysayers wrong — even just because someone said no in the first place — you do it.

The third thing that Harriet had always known, but hadn’t really crystallized until now, was that being bad was fun. If you were disobeying your parents, you got that thrill of danger, that electric sparkle all through you, telling you that you were doing _ the forbidden thing. _ If you were doing something that was, to a sensible person, not a good idea — i.e., what Harriet was about to do now — then you felt that same burning tingle. It was a blazing sense of possibility, the bravado with which you’d look at the abyss yawning before you and cry, _ Fuck it! I’m taking the plunge. _

Opening the door, Harriet said, “Come on in, Ms. Miraculous Nanny Ashtoreth.”


	4. Sin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sin on more, Harriet! Sin on more!

To Harriet’s infinite relief, Nanny Ashtoreth was most definitely not Goth Mary Poppins (although that would have been kind of cool). She didn’t turn up her nose at Harriet’s request for a resume and references; instead she instantly provided both, and their thoroughness was daunting even to Harriet. She did not dismiss Harriet’s eight-page questionnaire as irrelevant rubbish, but answered questions comprehensively and coolly, with all the care of a student writing the answers to an essay exam. She didn’t pull furniture and other weird shit out of her carpet bag; she didn’t slide up the banister; she didn’t make herself at home. Yeah, she was ineffably weird, and yeah, she called Harriet’s kid  _ my child, _ like she already had the job, but Harriet was willing to overlook that.

—Because Francis’ partner was gosh darn heckin’ awesome. She loved kids. When asked why she wanted the job, she said she had a gift for taking care of children, the knowledge to do so, and the skills. And then she went off on a soliloquy:  _ Over and over, moment by moment, my child _ (she meant Harriet’s kid)  _ grows and wonders and learns. Everything that they do is for the first time, and it’s as if they’re creating the world with every single thing that they learn. To participate in that creation is… Well, it’s a joy and a privilege and an honor. It makes me happy, _ she said. The word was inadequate to describe the wonder and peace with which she positively glowed.

Of course, Harriet wanted someone who had more than a love of kids. If she was going to entrust her kid to someone else, she wanted to know that the person would raise her kid right. Nanny said that she operated by three principles:  _ respect, affection, discipline _ . As far as Harriet could tell, this meant treating kids respectfully as small humans, demonstrating that you loved them a lot, and giving age-appropriate consequences when you had to. Harriet, who hadn’t gotten much of any of those three growing up, greatly approved.

Additionally, Nanny Ashtoreth was just Hecate poopin’, stone-cold, straight-up  _ badass. _ One of the maintenance guys and one of the yard guys peeked in the den, snickering about her in an incredibly obvious way. Harriet didn’t know what they were saying, but she heard Nanny’s side of the conversation. She excused herself from Harriet, walked over to the guys, and asked, in a tone of cordial curiosity, what they were saying. The guys quailed, but seemed unable to flee. She got them to repeat their words aloud and then asked, with all the naivete of an alien who understood denotation, but not connotation, what was so funny. The guys muttered something supposedly apologetic and slunk off. Harriet, who was restraining a profound and primal urge to punch the guys in the face, nearly applauded.

“I’m so sorry, Ms. Ashtoreth,” Harriet said as the guys disappeared into the woodwork.

“Me too.” Nanny shook her head. “—For them. It must be hard living with such a tragically impoverished sense of humor.”

“What did they say?”

“It’s not important.” Nanny flicked the insult away with a gloved hand.

“It is,” said Harriet, crossing her arms. “When I fire them, I want to tell them exactly what words made them unfit to work in this house.”

Nanny looked Harriet up and down — and, Harriet thought, inside and out as well. She couldn’t see Nanny’s eyes, but she knew when she was being judged. “You’d dismiss two loyal employees over a moment of rudeness to someone you’ve barely met?”

“Yes!”

Nanny cocked her head. “Why?” Her voice was carefully innocent, just as it was when she had spoken to the guys. This was a test, and Harriet was being interviewed as much as she was doing the interviewing.

“Well, because it was almost certainly misogynist bullshit,” said Harriet, “and because I don’t tolerate that kind of bullshit in my house!” She rammed her fist into her palm for emphasis. Whoops. Tone it down, Harriet. Too much  _ bullshit. _ “It really doesn’t go along with the whole  _ respect _ thing you’re trying to cultivate here.” Wait a minute. Nanny doesn’t run the house, Harriet. You do! “I mean — I’m trying to cultivate here. I mean — we’re trying to cultivate here.”

“I don’t like to repeat such things,” Nanny said, pulling a pad and pen from her carpet bag, “so here they are in writing.” She wrote something, then handed the paper to Harriet.

Harriet read Nanny’s note. “Holy Mary Mother of —  _ Assholes!” _

“Quite.” Nanny pushed her glasses up on her nose.

“Fucking shit — I mean — hecking poop! I’d fire them now, but I’m in an interview.” Harriet clenched the paper so hard that it crumpled.

“Well now!” Righting her head, Nanny gave a small smile. “I do believe I’m going to enjoy working with you, Ms. Dowling.” Harriet knew that she had passed the test.


	5. Damnation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harriet and Nanny test each other for worthiness.

Now that the balance of power was sliding toward Nanny, Harriet remembered that she had a test or two of her own that she wanted to run by her interviewee. “Well, I hope so. But now I have a serious question for you.” Calm down, Harriet. Try acting like the Queen of the Dowling Estate, rather than an angry feminist who’s out to break noses of all dudes who say sexist shit. 

“Yes, of course, Ms. Dowling.” Sitting straight and supple, her legs crossed at the ankle and her hands folded nonchalantly in her lap, Nanny swiveled smoothly toward Harriet. She took up all available regal dignity in the room.

Harriet cleared her throat and scratched her head. (When was the last time she had time for a shower? She was probably shedding dandruff all over the rug. She swerved away from those thoughts.) “What if,” she said, leaning toward Nanny with her hands clasped between her knees, “you found yourself in a situation where my husband and I disagreed about what was best for my child? What would you do?”

“I would say what’s best for my child,” said Nanny (who apparently now had equal custody of Harriet’s kid) instantly, “but that sort of question that really demands specific examples.” She leaned her torso forward attentively, waiting for further information.

“Oh, let’s say he wants to do matching Halloween costumes at the air base Halloween costume party,” said Harriet. Thad had already been planning a few possibilities for the upcoming holiday. “My kid’s embarrassed and doesn’t want to go.” Harriet herself didn’t mind Thad’s enthusiasm for matching historical garb from different eras, but she could easily see how her kid could be much less interested.

“Well, I’d talk to my child and determine the source of embarrassment. If it was something I could rectify, I’d do that. If it wasn’t, then I’d say that my child, having clearly expressed a preference not to go to this event, should have this preference respected and not be forced to go.” Nanny spoke with puzzlement, as if confused as to why she should recite the obvious.

“And what about if some relative is all about pinching cheeks and such, and I’m like,  _ Okay, you don’t have to hug Aunt Grabby Hands, _ but Thad makes some excuse about Aunt Grabby Hands just being affectionate?” Harriet shuddered. She was thinking of Thad’s Aunt Bernadette, who she had fended off firmly and summarily (much to Thad’s chagrin) after a cologne-soaked embrace in which she was nearly smothered in Bernadette’s blouse.

“The same.” Nanny gave a deferential nod to Harriet, as if she was repeating something Harriet had just said. “I support you. My child, having expressed a preference for bodily autonomy, should have that preference respected. I would also ensure that the relative in question left my child alone.”

_ Yes! _ thought Harriet and nearly pumped her fist. Oh wait. That probably didn’t go along with the whole Happy Hostess from Hell shtick. “Oh thank G — never mind. God has nothing to do this. But it’s so very nice to have back-up for once.” She allowed herself to recline against the back of her chair.

Nanny tapped her chin in thought, then inquired, “Does this agreement happen often?”

“Oh, uh, no, those were all hypotheticals.”

Nanny’s eyebrows slanted down; her face sharpened: the face of someone who knew you were lying. “I assume they’re based on your knowledge of yourself and your husband, though,” she said, her voice still as mild as it had been before.

Shit. This lady (Ms. Miraculous Nanny Ashtoreth was not a woman, but clearly a  _ lady, _ thank you very much) evidently had magic powers of bullshit detection. Once she hit you with her observation of the truth, however neutrally she did so, you just didn’t want to lie anymore. What was the point? She knew what was really going on, and she didn’t approve of lying. You weren’t going to get anywhere if she wasn’t happy with you.

Harriet flashed back to her father’s occasional tries at setting boundaries with her. As the youngest and only girl in a family with two rambunctious, mischievous older brothers, Harriet escaped consequences for most of her nasty retaliations. But sometimes her dad would tell her,  _ I’m not angry at you, Hatty. I’m just disappointed. _ Naturally Harriet heard this as the exhortation in that old misprinted Bible:  _ Go and sin on more! _

Nanny operated differently, though. She assumed from the first that people should give and receive respect. Part of that respect was dealing truthfully with each other. When she penetrated Harriet’s bullshit, she truly was disappointed, maybe even slightly taken aback. Why would Harriet, to whom Nanny had told only the truth, respond with a lie? 

Harriet reflected. Nanny’s strategy was strange. She assumed up front that you were good and then, on the strength of that assumption, somehow made you want to be good when you weren’t. Wow. Harriet’s kid would probably end up the most ethical and moral kid in the universe, but it was just weird being addressed as if she were herself. “Well, yeah...” Harriet confessed.

Nanny glanced to the side, thinking. Well, her glasses glanced to the side. Nanny had come into this interview with an advantage in the form of her sunglasses. Since she wasn’t removing them indoors, she probably had a medical justification — photosensitivity? — for them. 

However, the glasses also gave her a shield behind which she could look down on you and judge you. Meanwhile, you had no idea what she was thinking because you couldn’t see her eyes. She could have — oh, let’s see — empty holes that looked straight back into her skull, globes of fire, or perhaps apertures into the yawning abyss of space itself. (What were you supposed to do if you looked into the abyss and she looked back into you?) It was an intimidation tactic, straight out of the  _ How to Be Authoritative (and Scare the Poop out of Harriet), _ and Harriet frowned, not appreciating it at all.

As if she knew what Harriet was thinking, Nanny (or her glasses at least) met Harriet’s eyes. Then she pulled her glasses off her nose, folded the bows, and held them delicately between a thumb and forefinger. “Apologies,” she murmured. “Can you see me now?”

Harriet could, and the revelation was marvelous beyond emptiness, beyond fire, beyond the abyss. Nanny looked just like a changeling! Harriet knew all about changelings, which were supposedly fairies swapped with human babies early on in life. Changelings always had some mark of oddness that identified them as inhuman, by which they could be found out and destroyed. 

Of course, Harriet also knew that people had used the lore of the changeling to justify the abuse of kids who were physically disabled, mentally disabled, or otherwise weird. But she also knew that she herself could never harm another person, even a changeling, if she should meet one.

Harriet also did not believe in changelings just because she knew all about them, but  _ goddammit _ if Nanny didn’t look like one anyway. Her eyes were uncanny, inhuman. First of all, she seemed to have very little eye white. Her irises, a sparkling, slightly orange gold, as bright as egg yolks, took up most of the space. Second of all, her pupils were vertically oriented. 

Nanny had the eyes of a cat or perhaps a snake, but Harriet’s mind immediately jumped to birds. She loved birds; she watched them, going out alone in the early mornings and evenings, to catch but a moment of stillness. She liked most the times when she and a non-human animal acknowledged each other and then let each other be. 

She thought of the ravens she had encountered: startlingly large, quick and dark, layered in shining black. Sometimes, when she looked into their eyes, she saw the same thing that she saw now in Nanny, even though raven eyes were round and circle-pupilled. She saw an alien intelligence watching her, someone equal to her and yet different in ways that she couldn’t possibly comprehend. At such times, she knew that she could only nod to the mystery and retreat respectfully.

This situation was different, however. Raven, snake, fire, or abyss — whoever she was, Nanny was taking the guise of a fellow human being, much as Harriet put on her Happy Hostess from Hell face. As Nanny had swiftly penetrated Harriet’s armor, so Harriet had sensed something else going on with Nanny. However, while Nanny could see into Harriet, recognizing exactly what the truth was, while Harriet had no such ability. Nanny understood that, so she took off her armor. She wanted to work  _ with _ Harriet as a partner, not  _ for _ her as an employee, so she gave Harriet what she needed to acknowledge that the two were equals.

Harriet gazed into the abyss in the form of a lady, and the abyss, Ms. Nanny Freakin’ Ashtoreth, gazed back and smiled. It was a small smile, almost smug, tucked in the corner of her left cheek.  _ Well now, _ it said,  _ now you know who I am. And you, Harriet Coopersmith Dowling — will you, knowing what you now know, enjoy working with me? _ At the same time, there was a shyness in that smile; Nanny posed the question because she doubted the answer.

“Oh,” whispered Harriet, dropping all pretense of directing the discussion. “Wow. Holy Mary — “

“I do believe I told you, Ms. Dowling — I am not at all affiliated with God’s Holy Mom or anything holy at all, for that matter.” Nanny replaced her glasses, grinning.

Harriet’s own bullshit detector reasserted itself, along with her atheist Unitarian Universalism. Okay, well, that was either a very rare ocular anomaly. Or it was a deeply odd commitment to eccentricity — Harriet didn’t see the point of wearing vanity contacts if you were just going to hide them from most people. 

In any case, Nanny sure played everything for drama — and in such a way as to intimate that she really was magic. And — ya know — Harriet was cool with that too, especially since Nanny valued the truth most of all. “So sorry about that,” Harriet said sweetly. Then, in a lower voice, as if she were speaking a secret or a promise, she felt compelled to add, “And I can, uh, see you.”

“Likewise,” said Nanny in that same voice. In that moment, some compact was made. Then the solemnity broke when she said, “So back to the original topic — Wait a minute. What was the original topic?”

“We were talking about what you’d do if me and Thad disagreed about discipline or something, but you sided with me.”

“Ah yes, right. To tell you the truth, conflicts of this kind put me in a precarious situation, Ms. Dowling. I have my own duties to my child, of course, but you and your husband employ me. Thus, if I wish to keep my job, I must consider the placation of my employers.” Nanny smiled with a twist of bitterness as she acknowledged the limits of her power.

Harriet hadn’t really thought about that. “Shit. I mean — poop. Yeah.”

“And so,” said Nanny, “if I constantly support you and your decisions, does that jeopardize my position and thus the child’s care?”

“Constantly?” Harriet echoed. “Wait. What?”

“Your husband manifestly has no clue, at least in the examples that you describe.” Bowing her head, Nanny glanced over the tops of her lenses.  _ Of course, _ said that twitch of her left eyebrow,  _ we’re the ones who know best. _ “My own parenting style agrees with yours. What assurance will you give me that my agreement with you on these subjects allows me to continue the work I’m hired for?”


	6. Possession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The inevitable occurs. Heck is possessed.

Harriet had invited Nanny in, hoping that she’d find someone whose authoritativeness she could use to her advantage. She’d gotten way more than she expected. She felt like Nanny had just ridden up to her and declared,  _ Milady, your husband is full of the shit of the bull on all matters relating to the care of children. But fear not. You and I know what to do. From this day forth, I pledge my knowledge, skills, and passion — as well as my disturbingly large umbrella — to the service of you and your child. For lo, I am Nanny Ashtoreth, your knight in shining sunglasses. _

Did Harriet really have such a stalwart ally now, a co-conspirator, maybe even a friend? Apparently. Was it all too good to be true? Almost certainly. Was it poor judgment to hire someone that you were basically plotting against your husband with? Definitely. 

Had she missed some fine print that said  _ By letting this person into your life, you are dooming yourself to some truly weird and possibly fucked-up shit somewhere down the line? _ Of course. Was she flushing her (nonexistent) immortal soul down the cosmic toilet by trusting an unholy abyss of uncertain powers who was playing at being human? Oh, probably. 

Was this the worst possible decision she had ever made? Well, she wasn’t sure about that, but it was definitely in the top three. At the very least, was it a truly bad idea? Why yes, yes it was. Did Harriet give a flying fuck shit poop heck? Not at all.

She thought of the misprinted Bible.  _ Sin on more, Harriet! Sin on more. _ “So, Ms. Ashtoreth,” said Harriet with a smirk, feeling transgressive, “you’re wondering about job security. Let me tell you, though — if you get along with my kid — “

“—Which I will.”

“Right. Then that’s assurance enough. Uh — that is — I mean — you pass all the background tests and reference checks and  _ then _ get along with my kid. If that happens, then you’re golden. There’s no way Thad’s gonna fight me on that.” She crossed her arms and said in a firm voice, “I’ll make sure of it.”

“Well!” Nanny said. “Then you should finish your questions and let me see my child.”

“Fair warning, though,” said Harriet, holding up her finger. “You’re in for some really loud screeching. In fact, I’ve been told that my kid’s possessed by a demon or something.”

Nanny stood, tilted her head back, and laughed, a rich, dark, textured sound.  _ “Possessed by a demon! _ Oh yessssss,” she said, nearly hissing with glee at some sort of private joke, “my child most certainly will be.”


End file.
